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Time and again Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate and polymath, has stimulated our thoughts and world-view through his ideas. In his new collection of cultural essays Sen examines social justice and welfare, by addressing some of the fundamental issues of our time like deprivation, disparity, hunger, illiteracy, alienation, globalization, media, freedom of speech, injustice, inequality, exclusion, and exploitation.

Sen's deeply informed and humane writing connects history, culture, literature, economics, and politics. Several of the essays are concerned particularly with India--its historical traditions and the issues it faces today; many--such as his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2004--engage with global concerns. All are written with a passion and conviction, a gently persuasive style, and a characteristically undogmatic engagement with differing points of view.

Most of these essays were first published in the Indian literary publication The Little Magazine. Others are published here for the first time. The book is introduced by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former Indian diplomat and governor of West Bengal, who is also the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.

Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and was until 2004 the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is also Senior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Earlier on he was Professor of Economics at Jadavpur University Calcutta, the Delhi School of Economics, and the London School of Economics, and Drummond Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford. He received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1998.

c A Note from Amartya SenIntroduction by Gopalkrishna GandhiWhat Should Keep Us Awake at NightPoverty, War and PeaceThe Country of First BoysSharing the World: Interdependence and Global JusticeSunlight and Other Fears: The Importance of School Education as a Source of Nourishment forSpeaking of Freedom: Why Media Is Important for Economic DevelopmentHunger: Old Torments and New BlundersThe Smallness Thrust Upon UsThe Play's the ThingIndia Through Its CalendarsWhat Difference Can Tagore Make